“I do not think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers our country to its next destination,” Cameron told reporters on Friday.

United Kingdom Prime Minister David Cameron announced his resignation on Friday morning, just hours after the results of a dramatic referendum showed that the British people had voted to leave the European Union.

“The country requires fresh leadership to take it in this direction,” Cameron said in a short public statement he delivered outside his Downing Street office in London.

“I will do everything I can as prime minister to steady the ship over the coming weeks and months. But I do not think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers our country to its next destination,” Cameron said. “This is not a decision I have taken lightly,” he added.

Cameron, who has been prime minister since 2010, was a vocal opponent of the exiting the EU, a process nicknamed Brexit.

He did not give a specific date for when he would leave office, but said he would stay in place for another three months with an eye to the country having a new prime minister by October.

“A negotiation with the EU will need to begin under a new prime minister,” Cameron said. That new prime minister should be the one to start the formal process of leaving the EU, which involves triggering Article 50, he added.